CPDWrite
v1.00 CPDWrite - Copy Protected Disk Writer
Copyright (c) 1997 by Ulrich Doewich
SYNOPSIS .................................................................
CPDWrite is a command line driven utility, used to write emulator disk
images to any disk drive attached to the PC. Currently supported are the
most popular emulator image formats of the Amstrad CPC range and the Atari
ST.
Use CPDWrite to write .DSK (normal or extended), .MSA (normal or
uncompressed; single or multi-part) and .ST images to floppy disks. In
doing so, CPDWrite will attempt to recreate any copy protection schemes
that the image might hold.
DISCLAIMER ...............................................................
This software is provided as is. The author accepts no responsibility for
damages occurring as a direct or indirect result of using this software.
SOFTWARE LICENSE .........................................................
CPDWrite is Fairware - if you find yourself using it extensively, I would
be delighted if you showed your appreciation by sending me a donation. How
much that might be is entirely up to you. Please see the HOW TO GET IN
TOUCH section below for my complete address. Thanks.
GETTING STARTED ..........................................................
Minimum system requirements are:
386 based PC
4MB RAM
MS-DOS v2.0
5.25", 3.5" or 3" disk drive
Before you start using CPDWrite, you should load the supplied CPDWRITE.CFG
file into a text editor (such as EDIT - supplied with all versions of DOS),
and verify that the defaults given match your particular setup. The
configuration file consists of a few keywords denoted my the # character.
These keywords are case insensitive. They should be followed by their
corresponding value, separated from the keyword by spaces, tabs or equal
signs. Comments start with a semicolon (;) anywhere on the line. Keywords
may also be commented out.
NOTES
- The #TRACKS keyword is used to specify the maximum amount of tracks to be
written. If this value is less than the amount of tracks in the image,
only as many tracks as specified here are written to the disk. If it is
greater, the surplus in tracks is cleared ("unformatted") on the disk. If
#TRACKS is set to 0, CPDWrite will use the value specified in the image
as the number of tracks to write.
- The #STEP setting has a special function and is only of relevance if you
use an unusual drive or drive/ media combination (eg. use of a 3" drive,
or a 360K disk in a 1.2MB drive). In those cases the #STEP parameter
needs to be set to 2.
USAGE ....................................................................
CPDWrite may only be used from an MS-DOS prompt. Attempts to run it from
within any Windows environment will fail, since CPDWrite talks to the PCs
hardware directly (an action Windows frowns upon). Having said that, here's
the command line syntax:
CPDWRITE.EXE filename.ext <B> <S>
A filename is mandatory and can include a full path reference. The
extension must be included to indicate the type of the image file. All
other command line switches are optional and can be given in any order, and
in any case.
Option B will override the default and redirect all writes to drive B.
Option S will override the default and redirect all writes to the second
side of the chosen drive.
OPERATION ................................................................
While CPDWrite is working, it will display the progress via a track and
side indicator. Please note that some copy protection schemes require
longer write times on specific tracks. If CPDWrite takes longer than 2
minutes on a track, it's save to say something went wrong - please see the
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH section below in such cases.
If for some reason you want to abort the write process, use the ESCape key
to do so. CPDWrite will terminate _before_ writing the current track.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH ......................................................
If you want to let me know what you think about CPDWrite, or have a
suggestion for a future version, drop me a line via one of the following
methods:
e-mail:
ulrich.doewich@shaw.wave.ca
snail mail:
Ulrich Doewich
112 Tea Rose Street
Markham, Ontario L6C 1X3
Canada
You can always find the latest version of CPDWrite and other utilities
authored by me on the official CPE web site at:
http://www.tor.shaw.wave.ca/~doewich/cpc
If you have an image which CPDWrite fails to write to disk, please e-mail
me a ZIPped copy with a short description of the problem.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .........................................................
Thanks must go out to..
Simon Tatham (anakin@pobox.com) and Julian Hall (jules@earthcorp.com),
for creating NASM - The Netwide Assembler. Anyone interested in this
_free_ x86 assembler that can produce both 16 and 32bit code should point
their browser to: http://www.csv.warwick.ac.uk/~csusb/nasm/
Michael Tippach for creating WDOSX - an excellent freeware 32bit DOS
extender. Go to http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4493/ for
more info.
NEC for writing such a comprehensive User's Manual on the uPD765-A. It
was a tremendous help for delving into some of the deeper secrets of this
infamous floppy controller.
Discology, a CPC disc copier, from which I gleaned (via the FDC debug
output of CPE) the techniques for recreating some of the copy protection
schemes out there.
..and the following people, which helped in the development process at some
point or another:
Kevin Thacker
Sergio Bayarri
Damien Burke
HISTORY ..................................................................
v0.01 May 02, 1997 - 18:20
v0.02 May 03, 1997 - 16:37
v0.03 May 03, 1997 - 20:00
v0.04 May 03, 1997 - 20:24
v0.05 May 05, 1997 - 12:03 fixed the command-line bug
v0.06 May 06, 1997 - 23:05 worked on interrupt service routines
v0.07 May 10, 1997 - 21:02 first working image written!
v0.08 May 11, 1997 - 00:13 fixed 10 sectors problem
v0.09 May 14, 1997 - 22:15 new number of tracks calculation
v0.10 May 19, 1997 - 16:31 improved fault checking
v0.11 Aug 01, 1997 - 18:53 implemented general write track routine
v0.12 Aug 01, 1997 - 20:39 generic DSK writing
v0.13 Aug 02, 1997 - 13:41 preliminary extended DSK support
v0.14 Aug 02, 1997 - 16:18 CM and unformatted track support
v0.15 Aug 04, 1997 - 16:59 detection of empty sectors
v0.16 Aug 04, 1997 - 23:03 updated ST format pre-processor
v0.17 Aug 05, 1997 - 13:31 preliminary MSA format support
v0.18 Aug 05, 1997 - 15:39 added RLE decoding to MSA support
v0.19 Aug 05, 1997 - 19:34 dynamic GAP#3 size calculation
v0.20 Aug 07, 1997 - 23:42 check for DE sectors + correction of N for format
v0.21 Aug 10, 1997 - 15:44 preliminary DE sector support (added third case)
v0.22 Aug 11, 1997 - 13:36 improved DE sector support (added first case)
v0.23 Aug 12, 1997 - 13:13 changed sector error code handling
v0.24 Aug 13, 1997 - 21:59 support for multiple IDs per track
v0.25 Aug 14, 1997 - 11:56 added debugging output
v0.26 Aug 14, 1997 - 12:31 assembling debug info in memory
v0.27 Aug 17, 1997 - 12:48 completed DE sector support (added second case)
v0.28 Aug 18, 1997 - 13:55 fixed normal DSK support
v0.29 Aug 22, 1997 - 16:07 completely rewrote probe_table
v0.30 Aug 23, 1997 - 13:36 optimized probe_table
v0.31 Aug 23, 1997 - 14:55 support for unformatted tracks in normal DSK format
v0.32 Sep 01, 1997 - 23:43 added command line switches for drive B & side 2
v0.33 Sep 02, 1997 - 16:18 aborting now possible via ESCape key
v0.34 Sep 11, 1997 - 17:04 preliminary .CFG file support
v0.35 Sep 11, 1997 - 19:42 completed configuration file support
v0.36 Sep 20, 1997 - 13:33 fixed split MSA support
v0.37 Sep 24, 1997 - 18:40 user definable size of GAP#3 for format command
v0.38 Sep 24, 1997 - 23:06 improved dynamic GAP#3 size calculation
v0.39 Sep 25, 1997 - 14:10 added more error messages
v0.40 Sep 25, 1997 - 21:03 improved error checking in probe_table
v0.41 Sep 27, 1997 - 13:01 increased timer resolution
v0.42 Sep 29, 1997 - 21:57 converted to non-DMA mode for all operations
v0.43 Sep 30, 1997 - 13:27 finally got non-DMA mode to work
v0.44 Oct 03, 1997 - 11:53 support for 8K sector protections
v0.45 Oct 03, 1997 - 19:57 utilizing timer2 for precise DE sector recreation
v0.46 Oct 05, 1997 - 12:46 improved repeating IDs detection
v0.47 Oct 06, 1997 - 14:14 fixed bugs in GAP#3 size calculation & probe_table
v0.48 Oct 06, 1997 - 20:21 error recovery via timeout in FDC_execwrite
v0.49 Oct 07, 1997 - 23:29 major rewrite of pt_specialfmt
v0.50 Oct 08, 1997 - 14:30 fixed a bug related to new pt_specialfmt routine
v0.51 Oct 09, 1997 - 14:48 added corruption check to DSK & EDSK image parsing
v1.00 Oct 14, 1997 - 11:27 first public release
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